Mapleblock Capital, one of the most experienced venture capital firms in the blockchain space, covered why Pocket is becoming a key player in the Web3 connectivity game. Discover the key takeaways from their investment thesis on Pocket Network.

Pocket Network: RPC Node Infrastructure for the Evolution of Web3

As decentralized applications become more prevalent, the need for reliable infrastructure to support their growth surges. A key driver of that DApp growth comes from connecting with other data sources via nodes. In essence, nodes are “small servers” transmitting data.These remote procedure call (RPC) nodes support the transmission of data between blockchains and applications, acting as a key middle layer in simple and frequent user actions such as checking wallet balances.

So why don’t DApps run their own nodes to facilitate these transactions?Time, opportunity-cost, and technical expertise are some of the most common blockers.As a result, DApps prefer to outsource their node infrastructure to external providers. So far, it seems like a great solution. DApps need nodes, and providers offer that infrastructure.However, not all providers are “born” the same way.Despite operating in the decentralized world, many current providers have a centralized infrastructure, contrary to the Web3 ethos. Pocket is different.Pocket is the first fully decentralized node infrastructure protocol across the blockchain world. Pocket is a “multichain relay protocol that incentivizes RPC nodes to provide DApps and their users with unstoppable Web3 access.”

How Big is the Opportunity for Pocket, and What is the Current Market Landscape?

Worldwide spending on blockchain solutions is increasing, as the needs of the industry are booming. According to research by Statista, by 2024, spending on blockchain solutions could reach $19 billion per year. Blockchain spending is still nascent compared to the amounts spent on Web2 infrastructure.Web2 had Amazon Web Services. Who will win the race of Web3 connectivity?Current solutions have been compromising on key factors: cost, privacy, and decentralization.Centralized infrastructure providers have struggled with many outages, failures in services, and a lack of decentralization.Pocket is shaping the Web3 space by focusing on the key features that will make Web3 infrastructure mainstream, and enable high quality service for applications while remaining true to the crypto ethos.Pocket’s solution offers applications a new way to access blockchain data with:

• High privacy
• Low costs (including an entry level freemium option of 1 million relays per day for applications)
• Unique tokenomics, incentivizing nodes to perform at a high level of quality
• Multichain support for 45+ networks and growing
• 100% uptime for applications, thanks to a truly decentralized node network
• Egalitarian structure for applications and node runners/providers

An Exponential Growth Trajectory with a Unique Position in the Market

Pocket’s growth has led to a network of 48K+ nodes, 1 billion daily relays, and integration with more than 45 blockchains. Between March 2021 and March 2022, the growth in serviced relays on Pocket surpassed 5,000%, while the node network grew by over 2,300%.

Even with Pocket’s immense growth to date, it still has tremendous future potential, given the current state of centralized providers and the growth opportunities of the Web3 space overall.Unlike Infura, QuickNode, or Alchemy, Pocket offers a supercharged free tier of its product, enabling up to 1 million daily relays for applications, and can also offer low costs per relay across the network.Beyond the cost-efficiency argument, Pocket’s emphasis on decentralization, which facilitates 100% uptime and an attractive rewards mechanism based on POKT, makes it a top contender to become the go-to infrastructure layer for accessing blockchain data.Pocket’s unique approach to Web3 data, streamlined onboarding strategy for new blockchains, and recent growth have attracted leading investors to support this journey. Throughout multiple investment rounds, including $10M earlier this year, Pocket has attracted leading crypto venture capital firms like Mapleblock Capital, Republic Capital, RockTree Capital, and others in order to achieve its vision of unstoppable Web3 access.

Updates on the Horizon, From Technical Improvements to Tackling Economics

Pocket economics are designed so that the growth of the protocol (particularly in terms of relays serviced) results in more token emissions to reward nodes for fulfilling the service.When relays are serviced, POKT is minted and distributed to several stakeholders:

• Servicer Nodes: 89%
• Pocket DAO: 10%
• Validator Nodes: 1%

With the growth trend in relays, POKT’s inflation levels simultaneously grew. Nevertheless, the community introduced and approved new proposals to limit that annual inflation rate, while still keeping the tokenomics attractive for both the supply (nodes) and demand (apps/developers) sides of the marketplace.Pocket also has a significant update to its protocol on the way, with the launch of the v1 upgrade. The redesign of Pocket’s protocol will change several of its key “modules” - Utility, Consensus, Peer to Peer, and Persistence - with the goal of improving service quality and boosting long-term sustainability.Want more details on what attracted Mapleblock to Pocket? Read the entire investment thesis from Mapleblock Capital here.